Abdication of Edward VIII.

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The deed of abdication signed by Edward VIII and his three brothers

The abdication of Edward VIII was the culmination of a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth of Nations in 1936 , triggered by King Edward VIII's desire to marry his mistress Wallis Simpson , a US American who was divorced twice .

The governments of the United Kingdom and most of the Dominions were against marriage primarily on political and moral grounds. Simpson was viewed as an unsuitable consort because of her two failed marriages, and large parts of the establishment believed that Simpson's motivations were a love of money and status rather than the person of the king. In spite of the opposition, Eduard declared that he loved Simpson and that he wanted to marry her against the will of the government.

The resistance of the governments in the Commonwealth to Simpson as the king's wife and his refusal to part with her finally resulted in the abdication of Edward as king and emperor and the accession of his brother George VI to the throne in December 1936 . result.

The abdicated king became "His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor " and married Simpson the following year. The marriage lasted until Edward's death 35 years later.

prehistory

Eduard as Duke of Windsor, 1945

After the death of his father George V on January 20, 1936, Edward VIII became King of Great Britain , Ireland and the other Dominions, and Emperor of India . He was a bachelor, but Wallis Simpson had often accompanied him to private social events in previous years . In the course of 1936 Simpson attended more and more official occasions as a guest of the King. Her name appeared regularly in the printed court news, although she was never accompanied by her husband, Ernest Simpson . Instead of following the tradition of British monarchs at Balmoral Castle , Eduard preferred to spend his summer vacation together with Wallis Simpson on the steam yacht Nahlin in the eastern Mediterranean . The American and continental European press covered the cruise extensively, but the British newspapers were self-imposed restraint. British foreigners and Canadians who were able to read the US media were outraged by what they saw as scandalous behavior.

In October it became apparent that Eduard Wallis Simpson wanted to marry as soon as they were divorced. The crisis escalated at the end of the month when Simpson filed for divorce from her husband and the US press reported that a marriage between her and the king was imminent.

On November 13, the royal private secretary, Alec Hardinge , wrote a warning letter to the king:

“The silence of the British press regarding your Majesty's friendship with Mrs. Simpson will not continue. To judge from the letters of British subjects abroad, where the press openly expressed itself, the consequences will be disastrous. "

- Broad, p. 71.

The following Monday, November 16, the King summoned Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Buckingham Palace and informed him that he would marry Wallis Simpson. The prime minister replied to the king that such a marriage would not be acceptable to the people, stating: “... the queen will be the queen of this country. When choosing a queen, the voice of the people must therefore be heard. "

Arguments against marriage

Resistance to marriage came from several directions:

Religious

As the British King, Edward was Supreme Governor of the Church of England . The Church of England did not allow divorced people to remarry while the former spouse was still alive. It was therefore felt to be unacceptable that Eduard should keep the office of Supreme Governor (i.e. that of the king) and at the same time marry a divorced woman with two ex-husbands still alive.

Legally

Simpson's first divorce (consummated in the United States for "emotional intolerance") was not recognized by the Church of England and may not have stood before English courts under English law. According to this logic, her second (and third) marriage would have been bigamistic and therefore invalid. Any children of Edward and the Simpsons would have been illegitimate and excluded from the line of succession.

Morally

Edward's mother Queen Maria with her granddaughters Elisabeth and Margaret , 1939

If the king's advisers had found Wallis Simpson an appropriate wife, they might have tried harder to find a legal solution to his problem. But his ministers (and also his family) found Simpson's previous résumé and demeanor to be completely inappropriate for a queen. Eduard's mother, the queen widow Maria , was even told that Simpson had some kind of sexual power over Edward because she had freed him from an undefined sexual disorder through practices learned in a Chinese brothel. This view was also Alan Campbell Don , the chaplain of the Archbishop of Canterbury , who wrote, he suspected that the king was "sexually abnormal, what could be the reason for the power that Mrs. S. has over him." Even Eduards official Biographer Philip Ziegler wrote:

"It must have been some kind of sado-masochistic relationship ... [Eduard] enjoyed the contempt and rudeness with which she treated him."

- Philip Ziegler

The private records of Walter Turner Monckton , Edward's legal advisor, were released from the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 2003 (excluding the private correspondence between Monckton and Queen Mother Elizabeth , which will remain under lock and key until 2037). They offer valuable insights into the background to the abdication and the rumors and allusions that shaped it, especially regarding Wallis Simpson.

Wallis' other lovers

Police investigators who watched Simpson reported that, despite her relationship with Eduard, she had another sexual relationship with Guy Trundle, a married auto mechanic and dealer. This may well have been communicated to important members of the British political class, including royalty. Joseph P. Kennedy , the American ambassador, called her a "slut"; his wife, Rose Kennedy , refused to eat with her. However, King Edward remained in the dark about the alleged infidelity of his mistress.

There was also rumor of a third lover, Edward FitzGerald, 7th Duke of Leinster , the highest ranking nobleman of Ireland and a close friend of Edward.

"Gold digger"

The perception was widespread that Wallis wanted Eduard because of his money. His stable master wrote that she would eventually leave him "after she secured the cash register". The future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain noted in his diary:

“[Wallis Simpson] is a completely unscrupulous woman who does not love the king but uses him for her own ends. She has already ruined him with money and jewels. "

- Ziegler, p. 312.

Politically

Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia

The British establishment feared Edward's desire to modernize the monarchy and was against his intention to bring it closer to the people. When visiting distressed mining villages in Wales , his careless comments raised fears that he might interfere in political matters where a constitutional monarch would normally be neutral. As Prince of Wales , he had publicly called left-wing politicians "cranks" and made speeches against government policy. To follow his refusal to the advice of ministers, he retained as king when he opposed sanctions against Italy uttered after this Ethiopia in the Ethiopian Italian war had invaded, and the deposed Emperor of Ethiopia not received and the League of Nations not wanted to support.

Far more damaging, however, was that the British government was told that Wallis Simpson was a " Nazi agent". A German diplomat sent the Foreign Ministry information about reports from the German ambassador, Joachim von Ribbentrop , in which he expressed his opinion that the reason for the abdication was "to destroy those pro-German forces at work through Ms. Simpson." Rumors stated that Simpson had access to secret government documents sent to King Edward which he left unattended in his Fort Belvedere estate . Even after Edward's abdication, personal security officers protecting Simpson while he was in exile in France sent reports to the government suspecting it might "run off for Germany."

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation , the FBI , also made a number of allegations against Simpson. One of the most serious was that in 1936, when she was King Edward's lover, she also had an affair with Ambassador von Ribbentrop. The FBI source ( Carl Alexander Herzog von Württemberg , then a Benedictine monk in the USA) claimed not only that the two had a relationship, but also that von Ribbentrop sent her 17 carnations every day  , one for each time they were together would have slept. The FBI's allegations were symptomatic of the extremely harmful gossip that was being spread about the possible future queen that she (and her future husband, too) were Nazi sympathizers.

Socially

Eduard angered the aristocracy by disregarding their traditions and customs. Many felt offended by his departure from social norms and mores. He became extremely unpopular with the Scottish public when he refused to open a new wing of the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary . The reason he gave was that he was still mourning his father, but the next day pictures of him on vacation could be seen in the newspapers. He had declined the public event in favor of meeting Wallis Simpson.

National

Relations between the United Kingdom and the United States were strained in the interwar years. The majority of British people were against having an American woman as their queen.

The choices

As a result of all these rumors and arguments, British politicians believed that Simpson could not become a royal consort. Baldwin made it clear to the king that the people would be against marriage to Mrs. Simpson, and also that the government would resign as a whole if he married her against the express advice of the ministers. The king replied, “I intend to marry Mrs. Simpson as soon as she can marry. […] If the government was against marriage, as the Prime Minister indicated to me, then I was ready to go. ”Under pressure from the King and“ shocked ”by the implied abdication , Baldwin agreed to further exploratory talks and presented three options to the Prime Ministers of the five Dominions, of which Edward was also King:

  1. The two marry and Mrs. Simpson becomes queen.
  2. The two marry, but Mrs. Simpson does not become queen, but receives another honorary title (an " morganatic marriage ").
  3. Eduard abdicates in order to marry Mrs. Simpson.

For the second option, there were precedents in Europe (for example in Austria Archduke Franz Ferdinand ), but no comparable case in British constitutional history. Commonwealth Prime Ministers were asked for their opinion and the majority agreed that there was "no alternative to Option 3".

Churchill was one of the few who took Eduard's side

The government meanwhile, with the help of the Times , whose publisher Geoffrey Dawson was a close confidante of Baldwin, made Edward's affair known to the British public and gave the impression that they understood Eduard's difficult situation and were not putting any pressure on him but no option but to renounce either Simpson or the Crown. The Times itself barely featured articles on the king's side (with the exception of Winston Churchill's December 7th) and pushed for a swift decision on the matter. One feared a split in parliament, if in the course of time Eduard could win more and more supporters against the government, and on the other hand separatist movements in the Commonwealth Realms. While the king himself strictly rejected a “party loyal to the king”, at least the fears with regard to the Dominions, especially South Africa and Ireland , were not unfounded.

By actually commissioning Baldwin to contact the other Commonwealth governments instead of doing it himself, Eduard enabled him to influence them in the interests of the British government. The fact that Eduard did not ask any of his allies to describe the crisis from his point of view in the press suggests that he secretly wanted to bring about a situation in which he “had to” abdicate.

Nevertheless, Eduard wanted to address the people on December 3rd with a radio address. He wanted to indicate his desire to morganatically marry Simpson and either remain on the throne or return to it after a forced abdication. Prime Minister Baldwin and the UK Cabinet blocked the speech. They said it represented a serious breach of constitutional principles (since the king wanted to speak as a private citizen and without the advice of his ministers) and shocked many people. Among other things, Eduard wanted to say:

“Neither Mrs. Simpson nor I would ever insist that she be queen. All we wanted was for our marital happiness to come with a title and dignity appropriate to my wife.

Now that I have finally been able to take you into my confidence, I believe that it is best to go away for a while so that you can think about what I said calmly and without hurry, but also without undue delay. "

- The Duke of Windsor, p. 361.

In trying to win popular support against the government, he wanted to disregard the binding advice of his ministers in every Commonwealth of Nations - a profound breach of constitutional principles that went back to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and possibly beyond. The cabinet saw in Edward's proposed address a disdainful attitude towards the constitutions of his empires and a threat to the political neutrality of the crown.

After being told that he could not remain on the throne and marry Wallis Simpson at the same time and his speech to the Commonwealth on "his side of history" was blocked for constitutional reasons, Eduard chose the third option and became the first monarch recent British history who abdicated voluntarily.

Right maneuver

After Simpson's divorce hearing on October 27, 1936, her attorney, John Theodore Goddard , worried that there might be “patriotic” citizen intervention (a legal measure to prevent divorce). Goddard feared such an intervention might succeed. He handled the case as if it were a divorce suit against Ernest Simpson, with Wallis Simpson as the innocent, aggrieved party. The court could not pronounce a divorce if both parties agreed or if Ms. Simpson had "conspired" with her husband for a successful divorce, for example by having an affair or intending to marry someone else. On Monday, December 7, 1936, the king heard of Goddard's plan to fly to his client in the south of France , who had fled there. The king ordered him and expressly forbade him to travel, fearing that the lawyer might arouse doubts in Simpson. Goddard went straight to Downing Street and asked for Baldwin's protection. The government immediately provided a plane and Goddard flew straight to Cannes .

Upon arrival, Goddard Simpson warned that if it did, citizen intervention would likely be successful. According to Goddard, it was his duty to advise her to withdraw the divorce petition. Simpson turned down her attorney's advice, but they both spoke to the king on the phone to tell him that she was willing to end her relationship with him so that he could remain king. However, it was too late: the king had already made up his mind to abdicate, even if he could not marry Simpson. John Theodore Goddard remarked that his client "was ready to do anything to ease the situation, but the other side of the door [Edward VIII] was determined."

Goddard's visit sparked false rumors that Ms. Simpson was pregnant and even had an abortion. Since Goddard had a weak heart and had never flown, he had asked his doctor, William Kirkwood, who was working in a maternity hospital at the time, to accompany him on the trip. The press excitedly reported that the attorney had flown to Ms. Simpson with a gynecologist and an anesthetist (who was actually an employee of the attorney).

The abdication

The written declaration of abdication of Edward VIII was attested by his three younger brothers on December 10th at Fort Belvedere :

The following day the statement was made by each of the parliaments in the Commonwealth legal force conferred. The Westminster Statute , which divided the common crown for the Commonwealth into individual crowns for each empire carried by the same monarch, required each state in the Commonwealth to ratify the abdication separately (for example, in the United Kingdom by His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 or in Canada by the Succession to the Throne Act ). In the Irish Free State, however , this ratification by the External Relations Act happened one day later than anywhere else, so that Edward was formally “King of Ireland” for one day, while George VI. already prevailed in all other Commonwealth Realms . It was not the individual laws, but the royal approvals to them that completed the abdication. Since Edward VIII had not yet been crowned, the coronation ceremony that had already been planned for him was instead that of his brother George VI.

Several members of the establishment were relieved to see Edward's abdication. As early as 1927, his own private secretary, Alan Lascalles, had said to Baldwin: "I can't help thinking that the best thing that can happen to him and the country is to break his neck."

After his abdication, Edward (who was now "His Royal Highness, Prince Edward" again for a few hours before his brother made him Duke of Windsor the next morning ) made a radio address to the people from Windsor Castle on December 11th . The official address had been fine-tuned the day before during lunch by Edward's friend Winston Churchill and was of a moderate tone; Eduard spoke of his inability to hold his office "as I would have wanted" if he did not have the support of "the woman I love". The next day Eduard left Great Britain for Austria .

Duke and Duchess of Windsor

The ducal couple with President Nixon (center), 1970

George VI. made his older brother the Duke of Windsor , entitled "His Royal Highness". On May 3 of the following year, Wallis Simpson's divorce became final. The case was handled quietly, there was no citizen intervention, and few newspapers reported on it. The Times, for example, only printed a single sentence under what appeared to be an unrelated message about the Duke's departure from Austria. When the Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson in France on June 3, 1937, she became the Duchess of Windsor, but to Edward's massive annoyance was not allowed to use the salutation "Her Royal Highness".

The Duke of Windsor spent most of his rest of life in retirement in France. George VI. granted him an income tax-free allowance, which Eduard improved by writing his memoirs and illegal currency trading. During the Second World War he was governor of the Bahamas and was exposed to rumors and accusations that he was a Nazi sympathizer. He allegedly told an acquaintance, "When the war is over and Hitler has crushed the Americans [...] we'll take over [...] They [the Commonwealth] don't want me as their king, but I'll be back soon as their leader." He said a journalist, "it would be a tragedy for the world if Hitler were overthrown."

Comments like these reinforced the view that the Duke had sympathy for the Nazis and that the 1936 abdication crisis had driven from the throne a man whose political views had been a threat to his country and who had been replaced by a king who had not Had tendencies.

Role models in history

Henry VIII of England

Heinrich VIII. On a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger

Four hundred years before the crisis of abdication, King Henry VIII removed English Catholicism from control of Rome, creating the Church of England . He was able to divorce Katharina von Aragón and marry Anne Boleyn , although Katharina was still alive. Heinrich's and Katharina's marriage was divorced in 1533 on the grounds that it was incestuous under Levitic law (Katharina was the widow of Heinrich 's older brother ). Three years after Heinrich's marriage to Anne Boleyn, she was convicted of treason, the marriage was declared invalid and Anne was executed. Since Katharina had also died in the meantime, Heinrich was able to remarry and did so eleven days after Anne was beheaded. After the death of his third wife in childbed, Heinrich married a fourth time in 1540, now Anna von Kleve . The marriage was not consummated and Heinrich divorced again only six months after the wedding, this time on the dubious reason that Anna had been promised to someone else. Heinrich married twice more afterwards, but none of his wives had been divorced prior to their marriage to him, and the divorces that took place were approved by Parliament (out of Heinrich's political deliberation to father an heir and make covenants) and the Church ( for religious reasons). In addition, his divorces were formally " annulments ", that is, decisions under canon law that the marriage was null and void from the start and that Heinrich and his respective wife were therefore never legally married. This differs from Simpson's divorces, which were civil law legal terminations of lawful marriages. Someone whose marriage has been annulled can enter into a new “first” marriage, someone who has been divorced has already been married.

House of Hanover

King George I , then Elector of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , divorced his wife Sophia von Celle in 1694 because of her adultery before ascending the British throne. Neither he nor his wife remarried after the divorce. George IV tried in vain to divorce his wife Caroline von Braunschweig because of her (alleged) adultery .

Edward VIII was thus the first British monarch to want to marry a divorced woman.

A modern parallel

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

In 2005 Charles, Prince of Wales , married his longtime partner Camilla Parker-Bowles . Charles was divorced from his previous wife Diana, Princess of Wales in 1996, but she had died ( almost to the day ) a year later, whereas - like Wallis Simpson in 1936 - Parker-Bowles was divorced, whose ex-husband became Was still alive at the time of their marriage; also lives to this day (2021).

Unlike in 1936, however, the marriage did not result in a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom . The reasons for the different assessment of a similar marriage plan were:

  • Divorce was much more socially acceptable in 2005 than in 1936.
  • The Church of England has moderated its stance on divorce. She now accepts that civilly remarried divorced people can be blessed in a church service.
  • Unlike Simpson's first divorce, Parker Bowles 'divorce has been recognized by the Church, including because of her husband Andrew Parker Bowles' adultery , and is governed by English law.
  • Simpson had a reputation as an adventurer and was less socially acceptable as the wife of the heir to the throne than Parker Bowles.
  • After the marriage, Parker Bowles chose the salutation " Duchess of Cornwall " instead of the traditional " Princess of Wales " as the wife of the Crown Prince. Buckingham Palace also stated that after her husband's accession to the throne, she would not use the title "Queen" ( Queen Consort ), but the new title of " Princess Consort " (Princess Consort). Because of this, many see marriage as morganatic .
  • The marriage was supported by British royalty and government and blessed by the Church of England.
  • At the time of marriage, Camilla was already at an age at which it could be assumed that the marriage would remain childless and thus not result in heirs to the throne, which is why the governments of the other Commonwealth Realms considered it unnecessary to give their formal approval (in contrast to Charles' first marriage , for the approval of which the Privy Council of Canada met).
  • Unlike Edward VIII, Charles was not king when he declared that he wanted to marry a divorced woman.
  • Public opinion in 1936 is difficult to reconstruct, but opinion polls shortly before the marriage in 2005 showed broad public support.

Contemporary workmanship

The calypso song "Edward VIII." By Trinidad calypso musician Lord Caresser was the most popular calypso record of 1937. "Famous Last Words", a novel by Timothy Findley , is a fictional reinterpretation of the connection. In it, the two conspire with Ribbentrop to overthrow Hitler in order to usurp the leadership of the Third Reich and subjugate Europe.

In WE , a British film drama from 2011, Madonna tells the affair between Eduard and Wallis in her second directorial work.

literature

  • Lord Beaverbrook : The Abdication of King Edward VIII . Ed .: AJP Taylor . Hamish Hamilton, London 1966.
  • Lewis Broad: The Abdication . Frederick Muller Ltd, London 1961.
  • Hugo Vickers: Eizabeth: The Queen Mother . Arrow Books / Random House, 2006, ISBN 978-0-09-947662-7 .
  • SKH The Duke of Windsor: A King's Story . Cassell and Co, London 1951.
  • Philip Ziegler: King Edward VIII: The official biography . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1991, ISBN 0-394-57730-2 .
  • Martin Schieder: “Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be. " The abdication of the monarch - a blank space in the ruler's iconography. In: Susan Richter , Dirk Dirbach (ed.): Renunciation of the throne. The abdication in monarchies from the Middle Ages to modern times. Cologne 2010, pp. 291-304.

Web links

Wikisource: Wording of Edward's radio address  - sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. Lewis Broad: The Abdication . Frederick Muller Ltd, London 1961, p. 37 .
  2. Broad, p. 47.
  3. Broad, p. 56.
  4. Broad, p. 75.
  5. a b A Historic Barrier Drops. In: TIME . July 20, 1981. Retrieved April 5, 2007 .
  6. Sarah Bradford: King George VI . Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1989, pp. 241 .
  7. ^ Philip Ziegler: King Edward VIII: The official biography . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1991, ISBN 0-394-57730-2 , pp. 236 .
  8. Patrick Howarth: George VI . Hutchinson, 1987, pp. 61 .
  9. quoted from the BBC website
  10. Abdication letters keep their secret. BBC News, March 1, 2000, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  11. ^ Paul Reynolds: Mrs Simpson's secret lover revealed. January 30, 2003, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  12. Hugo Vickers: Eizabeth: The Queen Mother . Arrow Books / Random House, 2006, ISBN 978-0-09-947662-7 , pp. 163 .
  13. Vickers, p. 185.
  14. Duchess revelations stolen. BBC News, February 9, 2003, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  15. ^ John Aird's diary, quoted in Ziegler, p. 234.
  16. ^ HRH The Duke of Windsor: A King's Story . Cassell and Co, London 1951, pp. 136 .
  17. ^ The Duke of Windsor, p. 253.
  18. Lord Beaverbrook: The Abdication of King Edward VIII . Ed .: AJP Taylor. Hamish Hamilton, London 1966, p. 20 .
  19. Ziegler, pp. 271f.
  20. ^ Howarth, p. 62.
  21. Ziegler, p. 273.
  22. Owen Bowcott: Fear did Windsors would "flit" to Germany. January 30, 2003, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  23. ^ Rob Evans: Wallis Simpson, the Nazi minister, the telltale monk and an FBI plot. June 29, 2002, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  24. ^ The Duke of Windsor, p. 301.
  25. Beaverbrook, p. 14.
  26. Vickers, p. 140.
  27. James Pope-Hennessy: Queen Mary . George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London 1959, p. 574 .
  28. a b The Duke of Windsor, p. 332.
  29. Eamon de Valera , cited in Bradford, p. 188.
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  31. a b The Times . December 7, 1936, p. 8 .
  32. Michael Bloch: The Reign and Abdication of Edward VIII . Transworld Publishers Ltd., London 1990, p. 115 .
  33. ^ The Times . December 12, 1936, p. 9 .
  34. a b Bloch, p. 82.
  35. Dominic Casciani: King's abdication appeal blocked. January 30, 2003, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  36. Beaverbrook, p. 71.
  37. ^ The Duke of Windsor, pp. 378f.
  38. ^ The Duke of Windsor, pp. 386f.
  39. Stephen Cretney: Edward, Mrs Simpson and the Divorce Law: Stephen Cretney Investigates Whether the Government Colluded in the Suppression of Evidence That Might Have Prevented Wallis Simpson's Divorce and Royal Marriage . In: History Today . tape 53 , September 2003, p. 26 ff . ( questia.com [accessed April 5, 2007]).
  40. ^ Richard Norton-Taylor: Edward and Mrs Simpson cast in new light. In: The Guardian . March 2, 2000, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  41. Beaverbrook, p. 81.
  42. ^ Claude Bélanger: The Statute of Westminster (1931). In: Studies on the Canadian Constitution and Canadian Federalism. Department of History, Marianopolis College, February 26, 2001, archived from the original January 13, 2007 ; accessed on August 25, 2013 .
  43. ^ Executive Authority (External Relations) Act, 1936. The Government of Ireland, accessed April 14, 2009 .
  44. Sir Alan "Tommy" Lascelles: Prince Charmless: A damning portrait of Edward VIII. In: Daily Mail . November 20, 2006, accessed February 3, 2007 .
  45. ^ The Duke of Windsor, pp. 409-413.
  46. ^ Mrs Ernest Simpson's Divorce . In: The Times . May 4, 1937, p. 5 .
  47. ^ The Duke of Windsor: Departure from Austria . In: The Times . May 4, 1937, p. 5 .
  48. Ziegler, p. 529.
  49. Andrew Roberts: The House of Windsor . Cassell and Co, London 2000, ISBN 0-304-35406-6 , pp. 53 .
  50. a b Andrew Walker: Profile: Edward VIII. January 29, 2003, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  51. Ziegler, p. 434ff.
  52. ^ Alison Weir: Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised Edition . Random House, 1996, ISBN 0-7126-7448-9 , pp. 152-154 .
  53. ^ History of Scandal. June 7, 2002, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  54. Suzy Menkes: After one long affair, new challenges await. In: International Herald Tribune . February 11, 2005, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  55. Beaverbrook, p. 113
  56. ^ A. Thornton: Four decades of trends in attitudes towards family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s . In: Journal of Marriage and the Family . tape 62 , 2001, p. 1009-1037 .
  57. ^ Canadians support Charles as king: CBC poll. CBC News, April 8, 2005, accessed May 18, 2016 .
  58. ^ Marriage in Church After a Divorce. (No longer available online.) The Church of England, archived from the original April 7, 2007 ; accessed on May 2, 2019 .
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  61. Legally, the marriage was divorced because of irreconcilable differences and not because of adultery.
  62. ^ A b Andra Varin: "HRH" - Camilla Is Getting Those Magic Initials. February 15, 2005, accessed April 5, 2007 .
  63. ^ Website of the British Royal Family. Retrieved April 5, 2007 .
  64. ^ Prince Charles to marry Camilla Parker Bowles . In: The Times . February 10, 2005.
  65. Michael Valpy: Scholars scurry to find implications of royal wedding. In: The Globe and Mail . November 2, 2005.
  66. Caroline Graham: Camilla and Charles: The Love Story . John Blake, London 2005, ISBN 1-84454-167-3 .
  67. Calypso World. Retrieved April 5, 2007 .
  68. Timothy Findley: Famous Last Words . Delacorte Press / Seymour Laurence, New York 1981.